A relic from the days of Copernicus now has a home in Parkland County.

The Carmelite Monastery of St. Joseph near Spruce Grove accepted a 16th century statue of Jesus as a child last month. It began its life in Europe, travelled with traders on a treacherous journey across the sea and, in time, made its way from China to Eastern Canada before finding the home it now is preserved in today.

“We are overjoyed so much so that we built a shrine and this is something very precious for the sisters,” Father Mario Fernandes of Edmonton said. “We love this relic very much so.”

The piece never would have made it to the Tri-Region if not for the efforts of the Tang family from British Columbia. Ancestor Celeste Vong lived in Macau — a former Portuguese colony in China where it is thought traders brought the statue hundreds of years ago — during the Second World War and found it at a shop. It had previously belonged to a man who lost his money gambling and soon found a place in her residence.

The family declined to speak for the story. They have previously said it took up a special spot in their living room in an interview with Grandin Media, and, according to Fernandes, it also caused a medical miracle to happen for one of the family leaders.

“The husband had been suffering from liver cancer and had had a stroke and was in a wheelchair,” he said. “So they took help and alongside the doctor prayed to Jesus and he was healed. No chair until he died.”

For a long time, they worshiped and lived in peace. But, revolution came to the area and, though Macau was distant from the turbulence in China, the Tang family left and came to Canada to begin new lives.

The statue of Jesus from the 16th century recently given to the Carmelite Monastery of St. Joseph near Spruce Grove.Evan J. Pretzer

They arrived in Toronto in the 1960s and brought the statue with them. Notes given to Fernandes say the hot house they were living in at the time cracked the paint on the piece. They tried to get it fixed, but found the doll shop whose services they used made it look too doll-like for their liking. They carried on venerating Jesus through the statue and let it be until a desire to make it whole called to them in the 1990s.

They say they gave the piece to an artist with the University of British Columbia who subsequently told them how old it was. The school had no record of the meeting, but the family say they offered $3,000 for the statue, but the bid was refused. So it remained in family hands until 2019 when it switched to where it is now. The Tang’s gave it to the Carmelite’s due to the group originally being from Macau — they came to Spruce Grove in 1993 — and having a devotion to baby Jesus.

“We have a strong bond with the infant,” Fernandes said.

Anyone who wants to see it is allowed to come out to the site. Fernandes does not know how many may come and, for Cacilda Tang, it is a chance for the public to get acquainted with her former friend.

“I would talk to him, pray to him, and, being the youngest of seven children, I took him as a playmate,” she said to Grandin Media last month.